Cloud providers publish draft universal API spec
Seven industry members, including Oracle, Rackspace and Red Hat, have written up an API for cloud interoperability called CAMP
Vendor
lock-in has frequently been
highlighted as one of the biggest concerns to enterprises
adopting both public and private clouds, and is cited as a major
barrier for mass adoption.
Thankfully some of the industry’s largest players have taken notice
and last night
revealed a draft version of an API specification allowing
intercompatibility between clouds, both public and private.
Known as Cloud Application Management for Platforms (CAMP), the
draft has been written by seven big-name vendors: Oracle,
Rackspace, Red Hat, CloudBees, Cloudsoft Corporation, Huawei and
Software AG.
CAMP has been proposed as a language-agnostic API to provide a
common interface for cloud management. The draft has yet to be
approved by OASIS, the
not-for-profit standards body, but you can have a read of it on the
57-page
specification document [PDF].
In theory, the API should allow management of multiple clouds
through a single common interface, making it easier to move
applications between clouds and from an on-premise server out into
the wilderness. It also allows for infrastructure management to be
abstracted by cloud providers wanting to provide a simpler user
experience.
There a plenty of notable absentees from the initial list,
including Amazon, Google, Windows Azure, Salesforce and Heroku, who
have everything to lose from increasing interoperability between
clouds. Of course, if CAMP takes off and becomes the norm
throughout the rest of the industry, there may be increasing
pressure to jump on the bandwagon.
For more information, check out Oracle’s
blog post or the new cloudspecs.org.
Photo by kewl.
